


love is a beautiful pain

by kodzukens



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Graphic Description, M/M, also this was based off an anime amv and the recent snk chapter, im sorry im sorry im sorry im SO SO SO SO sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 14:54:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30141240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kodzukens/pseuds/kodzukens
Summary: Soobin's sight blurs in technicolor visions of Beomgyu.
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Choi Soobin
Comments: 17
Kudos: 33





	love is a beautiful pain

**Author's Note:**

> dude... im so sorry for writing this. honestly, i was just watching an old anime amv before... boom.
> 
> and the title is taken from cliff edge/endless tears - love is a beautiful pain

Two out of the twenty-four tributes. They made it through hours, days, and weeks of hell. 

They’ve made it this far.

Soobin feels as if he’s spent his whole life in this arena, this frigid tundra where it seems like time has stopped along with its surroundings. He could barely recall what life was like back in his district -- only sees faded fragments of a family and a blue sky and green meadows when he gets the chance to close his eyes.

“You cold?” 

He lifts his head up to glance at Beomgyu entering the little den they’ve found. He gives Soobin a peck on the cheek and a small smile as he peels the gloves from his hands, scarlet stains made prominent in the light of the crackling fire. 

If he were the same person he was before -- everything, Soobin would have averted his gaze to somewhere else, unable to tolerate even mere implications of death. 

But now, he stares. 

Soobin commits it all to memory: the way Beomgyu looks in the faint glow of the campfire, his lone eye gleaming brown, the way his dark hair appears auburn, the way they flutter across his cheekbones and against the slope of his perfectly crafted nose, the way his upturned lips plants warmth in the depths of Soobin’s stomach even in the cold.

He remembers what that smile used to look like, crinkled eyes uncaringly loud and bright, even in a room that calls for despair.

(It was during the Tribute Parade. 

The bile rising up in Soobin’s throat was almost there, intolerable amongst the flares of white lights and the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Locked in between his fingers was a pink flower -- a camelia, he comes to learn later -- someone from the audience had thrown, a complementary addition to the baby blue wreaths in his hair and to the robes that fall on his body. 

And he sees him -- sees Beomgyu, from across the area, with his wide grin and charming smile -- adorned in dull brown that shone like gemstones on him -- he was the boy who shone the brightest.)

It’s different now -- subdued and quiet. Perhaps losing the other eye took all the mirth with it -- but the weight is still there, heavy on Soobin’s nerves.

“A bit.” He doesn’t pry his eyes off of him for a second -- watches as the other boy sets his axe aside, places it where Soobin’s own butterfly knives lay, and takes his spot, the one always next to Soobin. “Just one left?” 

Beomgyu presses his lips into a thin line.

“We don’t have to talk about it -- if you want.”

“But I do.”

Beomgyu laughs drily, a tight-lipped smile crossing his face. “You always say that but don’t think I don’t see you crying about it every night.”

And he’s not wrong. Even with all the times Soobin has plunged his knives deep into the bodies of the other tributes -- had done so without any hesitation -- he does his best and thinks about the lives he’s taken, forces his head to know every name and face on the blood on his hands, and he cries. To remind himself of the humanity he’s grasping onto.

“I cry but that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna talk about it,” Soobin says, tone hushed. “I just… I just wanna know, Beomgyu.”

Beomgyu’s eye glints with something indescribable but not foreign to Soobin. 

(It’s a reminder -- of Soobin's own failure. Any minute later, he would have lost Beomgyu altogether, and it’s a hiss against his ears that he’ll never learn how to push away.)

“Gone,” is all Beomgyu gives him. The strain in his voice is enough for Soobin to know they’re not going anywhere with this conversation.

Soobin exhales, but it doesn’t do anything to soothe the explosions all over his nerves when he feels the back of his eyes sting. 

“Tell me something else then,” Soobin says, instead. He would rather listen to the wistful recollections of what was once Beomgyu’s life in lieu of the erratic sound of his own thoughts swallowing him whole. 

That tugs a smile on Beomgyu’s smile but it’s still there -- still shaded and somber. Nothing will bring back the radiant grin that had captured the many hearts of the Capitol people. 

Soobin couldn’t care less about which one he gets -- all he wants is him. The ache inside his ribs.

“Remember Taehyun?” Beomgyu says, a pensive look in his eye. “The kid next door?”

He’s heard of that name far too many times to forget. “The one who stole your brother’s axe?”

“Yeah, him,” Beomgyu says with a laugh. “I remember when he had a crush on this kid Kai, the mayor’s son…”

They dissolve into their world after that. The thoughts of the Games, of the one sole tribute running around, of the world watching them -- they don’t matter in this world they’ve made for themselves.

The tales that Beomgyu tells him are vivid in his mind, as they go for hours and hours until the Gamemakers will eventually decide that enough is enough, and these stories engrave themselves more so than the ones Soobin had of what was something he called home.

He could see it: an even tinier Beomgyu climbing trees and sawing through them with his small hands, his little legs running back to his parents, a familiar grin on his face as he would rush over to his friends, the smell of pine needles and bark on him.

(Soobin has memorized all their names by now: Yeonjun, who all the old ladies in their village coo over. Taehyun, the smart one who all the adults relied on, and Kai, the one who always has something to give.) 

It’s a thought that Soobin has every now and then, from nights out in the tundra and to the showers in the Capitol -- if he could have tried harder, if he had something to come back to, would he have the want that Beomgyu has?

He wouldn’t really know now anyways -- tries not to think about how his own family was ripped apart in front of him, their own way to salvage their youngest son and brother.

Soobin wonders how he made it this far. 

From what he remembers, he had been a trembling child when his name was called, front and center stage, watched with his own eyes as Peacekeepers didn’t make it easy for his begging and pleading family, with their batons splattering red on that day. 

Soobin had still been a trembling child when not even a day later, he gets shoved into a training room and he trembles at the notion of being prey for hungry, hungry, hungry wolves.

He turns to his side and finds his answer. 

With Beomgyu beside him, eyes shut in deep slumber, long lashes fluttering against his skin. Soobin briefly wonders if Beomgyu still has the capacity to dream about good things and hopes that he does -- and he knows they didn’t go through this alone. 

Soobin closes his eyes -- and fresher fragments begin to crash into him. 

**-**

(In the training room, Choi Beomgyu, from District 7, approaches Soobin with a smile and a throwing axe in one hand, a breath of fresh air in the suffocating stares of the other tributes. 

Soobin tries to find any hint of malice intent possibly hidden underneath that facade, and when the slithering sensation of uneasiness begins to crawl under his skin, he takes a step back. 

But Beomgyu, a stubborn one, doesn’t falter. 

“You’d make a good ally,” he tells Soobin, presenting to him a set of butterfly knives. “These would suit you well, don’t you think?”

Soobin blinks hard at him. 

But his fingers are already curled on one of the knives, and he says, “Deal.”

Beomgyu grins up at him, a sunny smile that radiates warmth more than anything, his cheeks bunching up as they glow pink in delight and his eyes turning into crescents as they dance with mirth.

It all feels like an omen for Soobin, a warning sign that stirs up nothing but bad notions in his insides, but he feels his lips twitch upwards anyways.)

  
  


**-**

  
  


Soobin's sight blurs in technicolor visions of Beomgyu.

He's here, in Soobin's arms. He looks the most beautiful when he's like this: in the light of the campfire where Soobin can see him, open and vulnerable. His brown eye -- gold and glassy in the glow of the hearth -- is wide with horror. His pale skin trickles with crimson drops that isn't his.

"Soobin," he whimpers into the crook of Soobin's neck. "I'm -- I'm sorry."

Beomgyu never uses any other weapon that isn't his axe, prefers to work his way to pierce through the flesh and bones with the large blade and he listens to every jeer, every cry, and every screech without removing his gaze. A punishment he believes he has to push himself through. 

His fingers are shaky on Soobin's knife, so unlike the sureness and confidence he has when it’s his axe. It’s Beomgyu, scared and brave, at the same time.

Through the patch that covers where his other eye was, Soobin can see where the thin cloth begins to soak, and he’s gripping Soobin's knife with one red dyed hand and has his other one cupping Soobin’s face as tears begin to spill over. 

A chuckle rips it way out of Soobin’s throat, sounding more like a gurgle than anything. 

His hand, very weakly, reaches out for Beomgyu. 

Beomgyu is alert. He grabs Soobin’s hand, laces it with his own -- calloused palms from years of gripping the axe -- and he presses it to his cheek, soft and warm even after everything.

“I’ll be alright, Beomgyu.” It’s an honest thought more than anything. Soobin means every word and he hates the tremor he finds in Beomgyu’s eye. “I’ll go quick.”

Beomgyu is biting at his lip, in that unconsciously arduous way he does when he forces restraint on himself.

They must love this. When Beomgyu’ll emerge from this arena, a hollow soul, they’ll milk out every single thing of this scene. This will move them to tears, they’ll love every single bit of this --

But that doesn’t matter now. All that matters is Beomgyu, in front of Soobin’s whitening vision, and he’s beautiful.

He’ll be the only one Soobin would ever allow to touch him like this.

With every bit of his strength, Soobin thumbs at the tears, his skin grazing over the pink of Beomgyu’s lips and he whispers, “It’s okay to cry -- just this once. It’s alright, Beomgyu.”

Beomgyu, always the stubborn one, shakes his head.

“Soobin,” Beomgyu whispers against his skin. “Soobin --- Soobin, I love you.”

The words come easily out of Soobin’s lips. 

“I love you too.” He smiles, only a faint ache in his ribs this time. “I’ll see you later?”

A laugh tears itself off of Beomgyu, raw and splintering and hoarse -- something more of a choked sob had it not been for the crescents back in his eye. 

Beomgyu leans in and Soobin feels himself awaken for the last time. 

It’s tender and drawn-out, and it tastes of salt and metal, a blunge of tears and blood --

And Soobin revels in this moment, to the sound of his fading heartbeat, to the sound of Beomgyu’s whimpers in between their kisses, to the feel of soft, parted lips against his. 

The whole world may be watching, but this moment is theirs and theirs only. 

Nothing will be able to take this away from them.

Beomgyu pulls away with a smile and Soobin sees the same smile from the boy in the Training Centre. 

This sight is only for Soobin -- not for the cameras, not for the Gamemakers, not for the President, not for the Capitol -- but for him.

“See you later, Soobin.”

Beomgyu plunges the knife in one last time. 

And this is how Soobin falls: into Beomgyu’s arms, the sound of soft sobs echoing in his ears, and the strangled whispers of a promise.

He glances to his side with the last bit of his strength and sees Beomgyu, beautiful as ever in the warm sheen of the fire, open and vulnerable as he weeps his sorries. 

Soobin closes his eyes --- fragments of blue skies, green meadows, and a sunny smile cascading down on him -- and everything fades to black. 

**-**

_// bonus_

If things had been a little different -- if Beomgyu had the choice to not stumble into that arena and emerge a scot-free victor outside with blood all over his hands --

If they were only kids and just kids, Beomgyu could see what life would've been like with Soobin. 

They would’ve had a house by a remote hill. Nothing too flashy. Just something enough and cozy for the two of them. A small cottage hut would be something of their taste. 

Soobin would most absolutely be insistent of growing their own food, and when the first harvest would come, Beomgyu would come home after working through the woods, and he’d see the ecstatic look on Soobin’s face, beams of sunlight captured in one single smile. 

“They’ve finally arrived, Beomgyu!” He could hear the delight in his voice already. “Look at this!”

Beomgyu’s friends would come over during the weekends and they would talk and talk and talk until inevitably, Beomgyu’s friends would become Soobin’s and then, the little cottage would become a second home. 

Yeonjun would be hovering all over their food stash, mumbling about how he purposely missed out on his lunch just to get a taste of their cooking. 

Taehyun would be peeking at the items displayed on their mantles, always having a cheeky comment in regards to their decoration choices. 

Kai would have his own futon ready for nights he might stay over, would have his own items already loitering around the house because it’s always hard to say no to him.

And in the nights where the air is just a little bit colder and the stars are crystal clear, Beomgyu and Soobin would end their day in the comfort of their shared bed, where their one good investment that would come in the form of a soft, soft, soft quilted blanket, would drape over them, snug and warm.

Beomgyu would brush his lips over Soobin’s in both greeting and partition, and Soobin would return it in the form of a placid smile, content and happy.

“See you later,” Beomgyu would say before he settles in for the night.

Soobin would laugh, contagious and loud. No matter how many times Beomgyu would call it ugly, it rings like wind chimes in his ears. His eyes would crinkle at the corner alongside a pair of dimples that would tug at Beomgyu’s own lips.

And the sight, beautiful as it is, would lodge itself as an already existing ache in Beomgyu’s ribs.

When he’d eventually falter, he’d smile, in that tender way, and he’d whisper, “See you later, Beomgyu.”

Beomgyu would close his eyes then, to warmth wrapped around him like the crackles of hearth --- and fragments of blue skies, dimpled cheeks, and a home would come to him then instead of a sudden goodbye and a final kiss. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> again. im so sorry for writing this. 
> 
> but kudos and comments... are still appreciated hng
> 
> and follow me on twt: [sbgyu_](https://twitter.com/sbgyu_?s=09)


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